Have Australians been forgotten (again) ?

[jikijiki]

As some of you may have heard, Yan from MCX recently appeared on a podcast where he talked about improved worldwide distribution, including Australia.

Come a couple of days ago where it was recently announced that three of the seven (effectively half of the entire Halo wave, not including individual hero packs) were US Target exclusive has me asking if we've been forgotten again?

We have Target in Australia but they are similar in name only - our last wave of COD Mega Bloks was the Signature Series hovercraft and the Halo 5 Banshee (to my memory).

Besides getting these items dropshipped from the US which would be crazy expensive - how else are supposed to buy your products? Is there an online shop in the works?

[Yan_MCX]

Hi jikijiki. Welcome to the forum.

I don't remember mentioning Australia in the podcast interview you mention, though maybe I did in passing. Based on the latest information I have, retailers in Australia will carry some of the products, but not the full line.

The reason that not all products are available in some markets has nothing to do with exclusive deals in the US. What it usually means is that there's not high enough demand in some countries to offer the full line. Retailers tell us how much they think they can sell and how many products they want to carry. While we might push for more if we think there's a bigger opportunity, ultimately it's their decision.

[NatoGreavesy]

What it usually means is that there's not high enough demand in some countries to offer the full line. Retailers tell us how much they think they can sell and how many products they want to carry. While we might push for more if we think there's a bigger opportunity, ultimately it's their decision.

That's interesting. How much input do you guys have in that regard - eg. do you suggest how many/what kinds of sets a retailer should stock? As an Australian myself, I often noticed some big issues with the way retailers would stock sets in our neck of the woods.

More often than not, they'd stock too much of the bigger sets, and not enough of the smaller ones. Every time a new wave came out, they'd put out a handful of the new figure packs, maybe a case or two of blind bags, but a dozen of the massive sets like the Vulture. The smaller stuff would get gobbled up very quickly, and very rarely got restocked, while the pricey ones usually just sat there for months taking up shelf space.

It's something I saw repeated at so many stores, from Big W, to Target, to Toyworld, to EB Games. I feel like this might have given retailers a mistaken belief that there was a lack of interest in the line, whereas the issue really lay with the fact they were overstocking the high price-point items and not meeting the demand for budget sets and army builders.

[MonkeyHazard]

Hello, I appreciate Mega answering so many questions about the 2020 fall line and international availability. I have spent some time reading the threads and I understand it seems like international distribution has been talked about extensively, so I won't get onto the "why is the distribution bad" or whatever, I understand you guys are working on it.

I wanted to clarify however, specifically with Australia, you have mentioned that the full line WON'T be available in Australia, I'm guessing you can't share the sets or pieces that won't be available, but do you have any insight if all the sets in the 2020 infinite line up will be available to Australians in one way or another eventually, either through local retailers in Australia or through a central international store at some point?

I was hoping that I would be able to purchase sets from the Mega store, but it seems like you can't, as someone new to the Mega websites, this was very confusing for me as you have a dedicated website and a dedicated store, yet the store seems very limited in what it actually sells. I find it odd that Mega doesn't offer its own sets through its own international store selling directly to consumers, especially in today's age where that's more viable than ever.

As a collector, it's very disappointing to be so constrained in buying sets simply due to availability issues in Australia, especially while seeing the amazing sets and figure lines that have been released over the years be extremely difficult to actually purchase being located in Australia.

[Quadee365]

Wait, which sets from the Fall 2020 Halo Infinite line are U.S. Target exclusive?

[Hicks_Royel]

Wait, which sets from the Fall 2020 Halo Infinite line are U.S. Target exclusive?

Best case, those sets no one else has listed like the ring segment and sword.

Worst case, all those sets EE, Amazon and Deep Discount keep pushing back.

Likely case, everything you won't find at the WalMarts that no longer have shelf space available for the brand.

[jikijiki]

Wait, which sets from the Fall 2020 Halo Infinite line are U.S. Target exclusive?

The ring, the helmet and the sword.